


Rusty Cage

by perletwo



Series: Trope Bingo Fills [5]
Category: Legion of Super Heroes
Genre: Cage Fights, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Legion Lost, going native
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 17:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perletwo/pseuds/perletwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Timber Wolf finds it easier to adapt to some aspects of 21st century living than his teammates do. Earning money on the down-low is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rusty Cage

**Author's Note:**

> This is a wildcard fic to fill the free space on my card. I found "going native/primitivism" on an auxiliary list of tropes on fanlore, and it seemed to fit with our time-traveling Legionnaires nicely.

Sometimes I think I have it easier than the rest of the team, adjusting to life in the 21st century. Pretty much anytime we're in what this era considers a major city, I feel right at home. They remind me of the megalopolis whose streets I ran on back home on Zuun. 

Any major city, I always know I can find certain things: a section of the city where the impoverished underclass lives and dies - those were my neighborhoods, growing up - the crime and criminal elements that always spring up to prey on that underclass, a segment of higher-status people working to help the underclass, usually for free and usually on little to no funding, like the lady doctor at the Orchid Clinic.

And I always know I can find somebody running an illegal blood sport of some kind, and people willing to throw away their money betting on it. In New York, I've got our pal Oz to help me find an underground cage fighting circuit and get me on the roster. Oz represents himself as my manager and negotiates my fee as a fighter; Gates and Tellus place bets on the underdog - or under _wolf_ in this case.

Tyroc probably won't approve. But somebody's gotta provide meals for this little pack, and I'm the closest thing to an alpha male we got. This is a quick way of raising the era's hard currency without formal employment, and while _I_ thought my original plan of robbing drug dealers of their coin had a certain simple elegance, this way works just as well.

Tonight I'm up against a big guy with a shaved head and what I take to be military themed tattoos. I've watched him win a couple of earlier bouts, and he's good.

I'm better. Not a boast, just fact. I used to spar with the best hand-to-hand combat man in the known galaxy - Val Armorr, the Legion's own Karate Kid. The Kid liked working with me because he felt I gave him a good high benchmark for speed in an opponent. I almost never won, but 20 minutes on the mat with Val was like a master class. I always came away with something new to think about.

The challenge for me here is _not_ taking my opponent out as quickly or efficiently as I could - to use my powers as little as possible, give the illusion of even opposition, and draw out the fight long enough to give the crowd a good show. 

Not to mention, taking the guy down without doing him any serious damage. Not that the crowd would care, but I do. 

Big Guy opens the match with a blow to the kidneys. I make a show of losing my breath with it, though in truth I barely feel it. I let the next blow drop me, and push up on my hands to kick him with both feet in the solar plexus. It's a move Val taught me, and I like it for this because it's easy to control how much force you put behind it, yet looks like a haymaker to the untrained, blood-lusting eye.

He falls back a step, steadies up his balance and spins into a reverse roundhouse kick. I duck down slightly and let it land on my shoulder. That one I do feel; against a fighter without superpowers it would probably be a showstopper move. He moves in, and I land a couple of shovel punches to his liver, not hard enough to damage the organ. I whip off a casting punch and deliberately miss, and I'm pleased that he takes the opening and gets me in a triangle choke, then gator rolls me to the mat and turns up the pressure.

I bare my teeth and growl, which would be a lot more impressive if Tellus wasn't telepathically disguising my fangs as normal teeth. In what feels like slow motion to me, I lever my lower body up and around, wrap my legs around the guy's neck, and start blocking his air supply until the pressure lessens. Then I break free and simply kick him in the face; blood spurts from his nose and lips, drawing a roar from the crowd.

Then we're both back on our feet, and I take a bolo punch right on the chin - I can feel my lower jaw snap up hard against my upper teeth. That one's gonna bruise. He moves in close, follows it up with a pair of uppercuts to the jaw, pressing that advantage, and a couple of knee strikes to my side. I snarl while in my head I'm counting off the minutes until I can finish this.

I take a few more on the chin before deciding it's time. I grapple him into a takedown hold and throw him to the mat. Before he can pull a reversal move I've got him in a tight choke, hoping he'll lose consciousness quickly. He's still got some fight in him, but I keep up the pressure on his trachea.

We're pressed close together as lovers on the mat, and time slows as it always seems to in this kind of fight. I see something flash through his eyes, invisible to the crowd, a message just for me: _Do it. Finish me._

Sorry, pal. Tonight's not your night. Legionnaires don't kill, and neither do I. 

He passes out then, and the joke of an official - whose only rule to enforce is "win by any means possible" - calls the bout in my favor. I climb the fence, jump down and shoulder my way through the crowd to find Oz and collect my winnings. 

We leave the makeshift arena and head for the rendezvous point, an alley a couple blocks over. Gates and Tellus follow a few minutes later with their considerable winnings; it pays to bet on the dark horse when he's a Legionnaire. I give Oz his cut - yeah, dude stood up when the Feds put the arm on him, he's earned himself a cut now - we wave a cheery goodbye, and Gates 'ports us back to our temporary home.

Not a bad night's work, if I do say so.


End file.
